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Micajah McPherson: "We have fought the good fight and kept our faith."

Marker: Micajah McPherson: "We have fought the good fight and kept our faith."

MICAJAH MCPHERSON
★ ★ ★
“We have Fought the Good Fight and Kept Our Faith”
Micajah McPherson, a trustee of Freedom Hill
Wesleyan Methodist Church and abolitionist, was
lynched about a mile and a half southeast of here.
Although there are different stories about his
lynching, they agree that he was an innocent man
lynched by vigilantes whom authorities protected.
According to his descendants, after the
Confederate Conscription Act was passed in 1862,
riders approached McPherson’s house one day and
demanded, “Where’s your boy?” “The Hunters”—
the Chatham County sheriff ’s men, Home Guards,
and McPherson relatives seeking conscripts—
were looking for McPherson’s service-age son,
Tommy, who was in hiding. The two had worked
out a plan to keep the boy fed and his father from
lying. When young McPherson returned an empty
food basket to the house for refilling, he left a
note inside that said where to deliver the full
basket. His father then could say truthfully that
he did not know where his son was.
Dissatisfied with McPherson’s denials,
“the Hunters” dragged him to a split-rail fence,
forced his hands into the narrow space between
two rails, and then jumped up and down on the
upper rail. When his answer did not change, they
hauled him into the woods, fired a shot at his
house to intimidate his family, and hanged him
from a large dogwood tree by the creek.
McPherson survived the hanging, however,
saying later that a noise startled “the Hunters,”
who fled. He heard one of them say, “I do not
believe the old SOB is dead yet.” Years later at a
church service, according to tradition, McPherson
approached a stranger to the church and told
him, “You are one of those that hanged me.”
The stranger left and never returned.
Major funding for this project was provided by the North Carolina Department of Transportation, through the Transportation Enhancement Program of the Federal Transportation Efficiency Act for the 21st Century.
CivilWarTrails.org
40
70
49
85
87
49
62 54
62
87
Burlington
You Are
Here
Micajah McPherson and his wife, Phebe McPherson – Courtesy John Braxton
Home Guards and guerrillas frequently terrorized civilians, taking horses,
seizing conscripts, and looting houses, Harper’s Weekly, Dec. 24, 1864

MICAJAH MCPHERSON
★ ★ ★
“We have Fought the Good Fight and Kept Our Faith”
Micajah McPherson, a trustee of Freedom Hill
Wesleyan Methodist Church and abolitionist, was
lynched about a mile and a half southeast of here.
Although there are different stories about his
lynching, they agree that he was an innocent man
lynched by vigilantes whom authorities protected.
According to his descendants, after the
Confederate Conscription Act was passed in 1862,
riders approached McPherson’s house one day and
demanded, “Where’s your boy?” “The Hunters”—
the Chatham County sheriff ’s men, Home Guards,
and McPherson relatives seeking conscripts—
were looking for McPherson’s service-age son,
Tommy, who was in hiding. The two had worked
out a plan to keep the boy fed and his father from
lying. When young McPherson returned an empty
food basket to the house for refilling, he left a
note inside that said where to deliver the full
basket. His father then could say truthfully that
he did not know where his son was.
Dissatisfied with McPherson’s denials,
“the Hunters” dragged him to a split-rail fence,
forced his hands into the narrow space between
two rails, and then jumped up and down on the
upper rail. When his answer did not change, they
hauled him into the woods, fired a shot at his
house to intimidate his family, and hanged him
from a large dogwood tree by the creek.
McPherson survived the hanging, however,
saying later that a noise startled “the Hunters,”
who fled. He heard one of them say, “I do not
believe the old SOB is dead yet.” Years later at a
church service, according to tradition, McPherson
approached a stranger to the church and told
him, “You are one of those that hanged me.”
The stranger left and never returned.
Major funding for this project was provided by the North Carolina Department of Transportation, through the Transportation Enhancement Program of the Federal Transportation Efficiency Act for the 21st Century.
CivilWarTrails.org
40
70
49
85
87
49
62 54
62
87
Burlington
You Are
Here
Micajah McPherson and his wife, Phebe McPherson – Courtesy John Braxton
Home Guards and guerrillas frequently terrorized civilians, taking horses,
seizing conscripts, and looting houses, Harper’s Weekly, Dec. 24, 1864